Worst Hospital Tour Ever

Last night we had our long awaited hospital tour...
I wanted to go back in june or july, but the people at Catholic Urban Hospital claimed that "all the tours were full until Sept 5th..."

Fine. Whatever. I'll wait my turn if I have to...

Fast forward to the who-can-effing-believe-we-had-to-wait-this-long date and we arrive at the hospital having already visited the L&D unit one slightly panicky evening...

"The group waits over there until the tour starts," the plain and uninterested hospital info desk lady informed us. We stepped around the corner to take our place among a lot of people (I repeat, A LOT OF PEOPLE!) Roughly half of the crowd was pregnant. Then we waited until 20 minutes past the tour start time and when we finally ventured out, I started counting. How many g-d people were on this tour and for heaven's sake, when do they "close out" the tour??? At 30, I stopped counting. Everyone was moving, it was crowded and I think all the hormones were having a cumulative effect on me. I was cranky.

Disclaimer: I had been up and out of the house since 7:30 in the morning. I went home for 30 seconds, picked up katy (well, she drove) arrived at the hospital 2 minutes before 7pm and the tour started around 7:20. It took 5 elevator trips to get us all up to the maternity floor (and these are the large, stretcher-accommodating elevators.) It was TOO many people traipsing around a few hospital units and it took TOO long! Also, some of these people weren't even that pregnant!!! At one point, i resisted the urge to sit down for a few minutes while the guide rambled on and on about being able to borrow a breast pump b/c i thought, "I'm not going to be the only pregnant chick who breaks down and takes a seat." But I was looking for a breast pump to throw across the room when nearly an hour later I realized that i was one of the most pregnant chicks in the room... some of these people weren't even due until December or January!!! HOW DID THEY GET INTO THE "ALL OUR TOURS ARE FULL" TOUR WITH US?!?

Anyway, back to the story... All along the corridors of the unit were the "we believe..." posters. These were not religious at all but instead professed the hospital unit's strongly held tenets about birth and spirituality and family and the importance of all those elements being encouraged and present during labor and delivery. Examples: "We believe that family is the center of the birthing process... and therefore encourage family to be present..." "We believe that birth is a natural process and every woman contains the knowledge and power to direct her own labor..." After i read that one, I walked into a room where I was told that once you are admitted to the unit in labor, you cannot eat or drink- a rule set by "Anesthesia."

I tried in vain for the rest of the tour to find the floral-patterned, pink-backgrounded poster that started with, "We believe that the almighty power of the department of anesthesia knows more than the laboring, birthing woman."

The tour was guided by a squeaky voiced nurse/lactation consultant who liked to say things like, "None of you will need a c-section... All of you will have a normal, natural vaginal delivery... but I'll show you the place where you go in to get a c-section, so that way if you see the recovery room, none of you will need it."

I'll admit it, I was grumpy. My legs were tired. My back was killing me. My bra had been on too long already that day. I wanted to grab this lady by the cheeks and shout, "THERE ARE ABOUT40 PREGNANT WOMEN HERE... ONE OF US IS GOING TO HAVE A C-SECTION!!! YOU CAN'T WISH AWAY WESTERN MEDICINE!!!" I wanted to c-section my way right out of this tour, but instead i leaned exhaustedly against the wall and inadvertently knocked down the unit's fire extinguisher. Luckily it didn't explode, but I thought my brain was going to.

We stayed nearly until the end- 1 hour and 30 minutes- and then I couldn't take anymore. I saw the newly renovated postpartum rooms. The flat screen LCD and Pergo floors were truly magnificent- I'm so glad we didn't miss them.

At a certain point, I looked over at Katy and whispered, "uncle." She grabbed my hand and said, "Come on, let's go." She got me out of there like a real American hero... "I believe that the lesbians in the group know and care more about what pregnant women need than Catholic Urban Hospital, the tour scheduling staff, and squeaky-voiced lactation consultants..."

Thank god I went home with one of them!